


Taken

by vinegardog



Category: Farscape
Genre: Fanfic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-08
Updated: 2012-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-07 07:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/428390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinegardog/pseuds/vinegardog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A good deed perpetrated by a bad being</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taken

Set just before and during Losing Time, Season 3 and written in reply to Starkacus’s challenge.

Rated PG

This totally hit me out of the blue when I had pretty much given up the idea of entering this challenge due to continued mind blankness. Once the germ of the idea came to me, I remembered some comments made about this particular ep on this board and I thought this might be a roundabout way to answer some of the questions raised. However writing the story from this being’s point of view turned out to be a lot harder than I expected – how do you give a voice to something so alien? I first wrote it in first person but I hated it so I changed to third person and I still hate it (although a little less)! I just wish I was a better writer…maybe in my next life!

Characters as always are not mine, even though I love them dearly! 

Thanks to A Damned Scientist for being my beta on this – I landed him with a horrible job and I almost drowned him in endless unpunctuated paragraphs due to my aversion to full stops! Thanks ADS for your help with this!

Word count: 1880

Taken (PG)

Its fellow beings considered it to be young. It found that view condescending and arrogant as that was not how it felt or thought of itself – its wants, passions and needs were all encompassing, raging through its mind and possessing every part of its soul. It wanted what it had been told it couldn’t have – which only meant its cravings now dominated its actions every single waking moment of its life, they ruled its consciousness and drove it hungrily toward its goals. There was nothing young or juvenile about that in its opinion.

Its unquenchable, merciless passions had not gone unnoticed and had earned it the reputation of possessing a cruel, unstoppable, diseased mind. They had made it an outlaw in its own society bringing restrictions and what it considered to be unacceptable, harsh imprisonment. 

All it knew was that it needed to break free, to escape its stifling, restrictive life. It needed to find a place where corporeal vessels abounded. To find a place where it could freely take over a body until all of its essence had been sucked and drained and then move on to the next one and the next one, making the inhabiting souls its own. It firmly believed it was not too much or too unreasonable to want a physical state, a tangible receptacle to call its own, a place to fill with its own consciousness as well as with the many souls it would soon enslave. 

It bided its time and patiently waited.

Its name was Rider.

As fate would have it, Rider did not have to wait for long. It saw a chance for escape and it didn’t hesitate to take it.

A large gentle member of a species of space farers, a Leviathan, a female, had been sighted heading their way. She was approaching the electromagnetic cluster, which was once its home and now its hateful prison, and was expected to sweep through in the next couple of arns at the latest – Rider knew this was the time. It was now or never. 

It truly couldn’t believe its luck, such a large living ship was probably home to many hundreds if not thousands of life forms of various types and shapes, a veritable feast of flesh, blood, experiences, feelings and, yes, souls, to hunt and feed upon. A sparkle of light pulsed through its shimmering body – excitement, elation, irrepressible longing coursing through its diaphanous veins translating into an amaranth soft glow, beautiful but eerily menacing.

Many voices in the cluster spoke out when the approaching ship was detected, some were in favour of boarding it to replenish their energy by briefly possessing its inhabitants, the majority spoke against it using their recent encounter with a Command Carrier and the consequent fresh adequate feeding as a reasonable argument against taking unnecessary risks. We are in no hurry, the older, wiser entities said, let’s wait for the next supply of bodies, there is time, we are not hungry yet. Reason prevailed, the more sensible minds calming the younger, more eager ones and the cluster as one finally decided to let these travellers through without revealing its presence.

Rider vehemently disagreed and seethed with anger, powerless in its captive state. It however wisely kept its own council and cunningly pretended to not care. It needed no help or permission from the others to leave and begin its free, independent life as a succubus of souls.

Using all of its wiles, it succeeded in breaking free from its jailer just as the sleek, golden Leviathan glided silently and gracefully through the cluster and just like that, it found itself on the command bridge of the unsuspecting ship.

Freedom tasted, smelt and felt glorious. After a few moments revelling in the overwhelming joy of the moment, Rider’s mind sharply focused on its new surroundings – something was wrong! It could only sense a few bodies here instead of the hundreds it had expected. This was a setback, no doubt, but quickly it decided to make the best of its new found independence as there was no going back now, its choice, like it or not, was irrevocable.

Suppressing its disappointment, it swiftly re-focused its attention on the one solitary being standing in the cavernous room, the being who, at that very moment, was with curious and fascinated alarm looking straight in its direction. This species was known to it, a Sebacean, a relatively young and apparently healthy male. He would do, Rider thought, and with relish it swiftly entered him expecting the not unpleasant chilly Sebacean taste to fill its senses – shock was its first reaction when the anticipated flavour turned out to be decidedly different, warmer, more intense. Its second reaction was to fly straight through the strange flesh and blood and exit through the other side in a panicked act of self-preservation . It took Rider a microt to still its fluttering heart and to assess what had just happened: the taste had not been bad, just different, this species was obviously not Sebacean, this species was unknown to it, a species never encountered before…the flavour still running through its centre like molten light, slowly turning into a pleasant and pleasing surprise. Yes, it decided, this body was worth re-possessing.

The second entering was as swift as the first, the strange alien only able to half turn in its direction before Rider overcame him sending him into an intense fugue state. This would give it time to savour the experience and steadily permeate the inanimate subject without fear of a fight or even minimal resistance. With an almost inaudible whoosh and the swiftest of movements, Rider accomplished the task of fully expanding itself in the host receptacle immediately beginning the exploration of it with an almost sensual pleasure.

Lifted by the power of the invader’s greed, the flesh and blood body hovered as if suspended in a zero gravity void on the Leviathan’s command bridge.

Rider first revelled in the taste of strong muscle and sinew, of young and elastic blood vessels, it rejoiced while insinuating itself through vital organs - kidneys, liver, bowel, stomach, heart, lungs…where it suddenly stopped in its probe. Something here did not taste as pleasant and heady, something was offensively bitter and sour at the same time. Rider paused and suspended its sensual abandonment to pursue a more careful examination…cell growth in the tissue of this alien’s breathing apparatus was abnormal, too prolific, nasty and repulsive to its advanced sense of taste. The anomalous cellular growth took visual shape in its curious and fascinated mind as black coils extending out to the rest of the body - a body still healthy but evidently not for long. Rider could almost visualise it as malignant tendrils, which would all too soon be wrapping themselves around other nearby vital organs, without a shadow of a doubt killing this being in the very near future. 

A fascinating disease, one never seen before in similar organic forms, Rider thought continuing to circle the spongy contracting and expanding masses of tissue. It wondered what had caused such devastating rot to take hold in an otherwise very vibrant and lively organism…but it did not really care enough to linger on the thought for too long. It had the means to heal it so there was no need for alarm, its electromagnetic power more than sufficient to burn off and eliminate the excess of contaminated cells. It would take but a few microts of restorative applied energy and some profuse but survivable blood loss on the part of the alien to make this body a well and fit home for it to reside in and enjoy for some time. With a satisfied sigh, Rider now turned its mind back to the completion of its exploration but, for a second time and to its renewed puzzlement something stopped it in its tracks… something still did not feel right although pinpointing what it was, this time, did not prove to be as easy a task. 

Nonplussed but determined, it continued its journey of discovery proceeding further up into the head, through the mouth and the nose. It then lingered briefly and shimmered with amusement when coming across the inefficiency and inadequacy of the visual organs in this particular species and then it carried on deep into the grey matter of the brain and then again back down to the body’s core still searching for that one thing that did not feel right and that ran the risk of making this an unsuitable dwelling to inhabit. 

Microts went by and finally its searches brought it some clarity, something worse than the cancerous growth already encountered was happening in this receptacle…yes, Rider now suddenly saw it clearly, the problem was with the soul. There was something wrong with the soul! This was unacceptable, the soul was at least as important as the flesh and blood to it, it could not, it would not tolerate a damaged or depleted soul. 

Confusion swirled in Rider’s mind, this was yet again a new experience, something never encountered in any physical form previously possessed. This man was no longer master of his own soul! Jumbled images of raven black hair, a wide rare smile and of steel grey-blue eyes dredged up from this being’s very core overlapped in Rider’s probing consciousness …it had no doubt these were flashing images of the usurper of this man’s essence, of the thief that had spoiled its own hard earned reward. Disgusted, it allowed itself a flash of anger and disappointment. This was not a viable vessel for its needs, it would have to abandon it and shift into the next one in the hope of finding a whole one this time, for the true gratification of its desires. 

Decision made, it prepared to abandon the useless, still hovering, semi-empty husk but uncharacteristic hesitation slowed its course…and made it look inward one more time at the putrid mass of multiplying cells, which would soon ravage and extinguish the alien. It exhorted itself to move on and out but something… something Rider would not have been able to explain even to itself, something it would not waste time to analyse in too much detail even if it had had the inclination, made it draw back fully into this ailing body once again. A firm invisible touch, a gentle pressure, a strong vibration and the corrupting breathing organs were brought back to full functionality and health in a purifying gush of expelled blood.

It didn’t know it then, but Rider didn’t have long to live. It was being mercilessly pursued by its jailer, Tallip, and the very alien it had just helped heal, the alien, who would soon come to be known to it as John Crichton, would also in just a few arns play a major role in its demise. 

Which also meant that Rider would never get the chance to tell him about how that black haired, steel grey-blue eyed Sebacean-looking woman entrenched at the very centre of his core had saved his life by owning his soul in a way Rider itself could never hope to accomplish and how she had ultimately moved it to the only act of mercy it would ever perform in its short, selfish life.

The end


End file.
